iParaglide Flight Club - Yaletown Brew Pub Pilots Gathering Aug.13/10

Great time last night at the Yaletown Brew Pub.

Lots of great paragliding stories and other good laughs.   

Later on we ended up learning how to do some "Top Gun" drinking with ???, F18 Hornet pilot for the ??? Armed forces.   The "AFTERBURNER" drinking ritual involved:

1. holding Sambuca in your mouth

2. dipping your finger in some

3. lighting your finger on fire 

4. using your lit finger to light your mouth on fire

5. having someone sprinkle cinnamon from on top - creating fireworks

Ouuch!!!

??? is headed back to ???.  

It was a pleasure coaching him during his stay with us for our iParaglide Top Gun Paragliding Flight School -  9 day P2 HPAC Novice Paraglider total immersion -  we ended up doing it in only 7!  He stole the show over the last few days under ground-to-air-radio. We were able to coach him to engage thermals and wind it up to cloud base repeatedly, skying out the locals, on only his 12th paraglider flight!  He had multi-hour thermalling flights including a 2.5 hour flight which we cut short only to get him 6 flights per day over his last two paragliding training days, to accommodate his tight schedule.    

Next Flight Club - 19:30 Fri. Oct.1 -  We'll reserve a section in the restaurant section to see how we like it on that side...

Thanks to all the great paragliding pilots and friends that came down!

Icaro Wildcat Paraglider is Here: XC Performance with Safety of EN B!

Incorporating the latest innovations gleaned from development of the ultra performance Icaro GTO Race competition paraglider,  the Icaro Wildcat is the latest inspired paraglider design aimed at cross country pilots, who want stress free flying, within the safety of the LTF1-2 & EN B class.

A review of the details of this paraglider impress: 

The aspect ratio of 5.5 flat and 4.5 projected is higher than typically found in this class, see below table for a comparison of popular EN B class paragliders:

• Extensive v-rib and span wise pre-tensioned struts allow for: a high aspect ratio, a low form profile, a wrinkle free paraglider canopy, excellent form rigidity, and lines only every third cell.
• Performance-Air-Intake-Flaps (PAIF), an Icaro innovation, are small fabric triangles under the leading edge that increase the cell opening size at the start, for a simple launch. In flight, the flaps close, and the reduced cell openings of smaller size typically only found on DHV2 paraglider, achieve an additional performance kick. 
• Lightweight construction of the canopy interior and the stabilo for a significant folding resistance of the paragliding canopy and refined extreme flight behavior.  
• Pro-grip brake handles, an Icaro innovation, allow customizing the brake handle size for the paraglider pilot. Swivels prevent twisting of the brake lines.

We have the first Wildcats destined for North America and two are already sold!  

We will be releasing more details and a photo spread once we have had some more time with the paraglider that is destined to set new standards in the ENB /LTF1-2 class.

The Province newspaper explores paragliding with iParaglide

The Province experienced a paragliding tandem free flight with Dion Vuk, director of iParaglide. In this article, Terry Bell writes about his experience of a paragliding tandem flight.

Download the pdf here.